Numeric Citizen Blog

Basic Apple Guy writing about the Apple Vision Pro:

For now, Vision Pro remains a very exclusive playground for developers and enthusiasts, clay waiting to be moulded into something quite incredible for the future.

Craig Hockenberry writing about the Mac turning 40:

Apple Vision Pro is a technical marvel, but ultimately falls short in ways that satisfy the natural curiosity of developers.

Time will tell if a new generation of developers will find their way to be creative and think outside the box¹. Otherwise, Apple will eventually have to try harder to think outside the box.

2024-02-01 ∞

I'll probably buy an Apple Vision Pro when it arrives in Canada. My wife doesn't know it. She will undoubtedly question my decision. She can be challenging at times. But I'll go ahead anyway. We don't have a home theatre by today's standards. We never invested money into these technologies. But this time, it's different. It's a too important moment in technology to pass.

2024-02-02 ∞

I'm Sorry but Apple Vision Pro Is Another VR Headset, or Is It?

Of all people who reviewed or are now active users of the Apple Vision Pro, some are mentioning, rightfully, that this is not about AR¹ but 95% about VR². Apple doesn't want to admit it, but this is a VR headset. Why is that? Is is because it is "easier"³ to recreate something from the ground up (the virtual world enabled by visionOS) than taking the reality and adding meaningful and useful stuff to it? I see much more limited use case for augmented reality than for virtual reality. It might change in the future, now that people are now exposed to it through other people using the headset sharing their experience.

2024-02-03 ∞

The Next One Is My Best

I just completed recording my next YouTube video (my YouTube channel), which will come out early next week. It's probably the one I'm the most proud of at many levels. The release will match the release of a new version of an app that I like a lot 🤫. Technically, the sound is good. I'me using Bezels to demo the app on the iPad and the iPhone, a first for me. The video structure seems logical and should help the viewers in learning new things. Can't wait to share that one. I hope it will get the attention I'm hoping for. 🤞🏻

2024-02-03 ∞

If you're a Craft user and are looking for ways that Gen AI could add value to the Craft Assistant, I wrote this document. I think there is an untapped potential in Craft because of minimalistic support for the ChatGPT entry-level model. Feedback is welcome.

2024-02-03 ∞

Folks, I think I’ve finally rationalized it. Don’t think of it as a PURCHASE. Think of it as an advanced prototype that you’ve paid Apple for the PRIVILEGE of testing.

Thinking about the Apple Vision Pro, the right way.

2024-02-04 ∞

Craft release v2.7.0 is a big one. There are lots of improvements that should please a majority of users. I played with it while in beta and created a video to give users a visual look at what's new. The Craft Bible also was updated to include the release analysis, now part of the subscription.

2024-02-05 ∞

About This Permanent State of Being Undecided With Apps

I have been a happy user of Apple Safari for the last decade. If possible, I prefer using Apple’s browser, thanks to its privacy protection and features. If something doesn’t work in Safari, I will try Firefox. I’ll do everything possible to skip Google Chrome. I use Microsoft Edge because of its integration with Microsoft 365 at work. But Safari is never too far, just in case. It’s now my fall-back plan. Why this change? Because of the Arc Browser, which is now my main browser.

I’m the type of user who always tries to find a use case for an app that I really like, even if it is superseded with a better one. I love Craft. I always use it in my creative hobbies, but I found a great use case for Notion at work. I like Apple Reminder for family-related tasks but use Things 3 for my creative hobbies. I like Apple Calendar for my personal life but prefer Fantastical for the office. I keep both. I like HEY mail but must use Outlook at the office.

This constant duality in my choices about which app to use sometimes looks like psychological trouble. 😬🤷🏻‍♂️

2024-02-05 ∞

It’s now official: Trump and his clown followers are complicit of Putin. Disgusting. Disclaimer: this blog hosts my thoughts and mild-venting about the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦.

2024-02-05 ∞

A satisfying exercise for me is to open Glass on my iPad and start to glance at photos and members. Each time, my goal is to subscribe to three members with photos that I like. Today, unexpectedly, I stumbled on the announcement of the upcoming Series feature. I can’t waitt for that one. Pixelfed isn’t really good at this, posting a bunch of related photos in one post.

2024-02-05 ∞

Since getting a MacBook a few years ago, my iPad usage drastically dropped, to a point where sometimes I wonder if I'll ever upgrade my aging 2018 11-inch iPad Pro. Yesterday, I spent the whole evening on it for reading and watching YouTube. It was a reminder that I still the love the iPad form factor and I couldn't live without one.

2024-02-06 ∞

Sometimes, I have an idea for what would be a short blog post, and start writing it, thinking I’ll share it here on Micro.blog. As I’m writing my article, it grows and grows and grows to a point where I need to reconsider where I’m going to share the article. When I cross the 500 words mark¹, this is where it makes more sense to post on my main website which is dedicated to long and less in-the-moment thoughts. I’m working on a long one about micro.blog. Stay tuned.

2024-02-06 ∞

While I'm still waiting my invite for Scribbles (tick tock tick tock @vincent 😬), I'm thinking of a possible use case. And I think I might be on the verge of finding one. My digital presence goes like this: Space ➡️ Blog ➡️ (...something small, tiny blips...) Blips. More to come soon.

2024-02-07 ∞

I’ll be blipping soon. 👀

2024-02-07 ∞

From an Idea to Blips

As I wrote earlier today, I've been wondering about a possible use case for Scribbles¹. It took me about 5 minutes to get my idea, and it is called Blips, Numeric Citizen Blips, to be more precise². Blips will enable me to share... short blips of my digital life. I should be fun, noisy at times. But not too much. Enjoy. Or not. 🙃

2024-02-07 ∞

🔥 It's still Sunday where I live, and it's time to share the newest edition of the weekly creative summary! Coming up soon to a mailbox near you. 😅

2024-02-11 ∞

When people are nervous and under pressure, their worst tendencies often surface easily. 😌

2024-02-14 ∞

My uneducated expectations tell me that Apple will announce Apple Vision Pro expanded availability to Canada during their highly expected and anticipated event announcing the iPad Pro refresh.

2024-02-14 ∞

It's the perfect coffee shop kit for me. At first, I didn't think of going out today, but I realized that I spend all weekdays at home for work. I guess it was time to see the world and enjoy a creative session at the coffee shop while listening to music. Slow vibes¹.

2024-02-17 ∞

I wrote a little article¹ explaining how I'm using Ghost's API to "browse" published articles so that I can select an article that I want to update.

2024-02-17 ∞

It's time for the 2024-06 issue of my weekly creative summary! Not my best week, but good enough to share! 👨🏻‍💻😅 I created an index for the past editions. Newsletter going out by email soon. 📬

2024-02-18 ∞

I wasn't invited to share my thoughts on this year's SixColors Apple performance performance report, So I'm writing my own performance report. 😛

2024-02-20 ∞

Apple Vision Pro Returns https://initialcharge.net/2024/02/gurman-vision-pro-returns/

I wonder, sometimes, about the Apple Vision Pro ending up in the drawer, just like pre-iPod era MP3 players. Time will tell.

2024-02-20 ∞

Apple Journals is iPhone only. Apple Sports is iPhone only¹. Apple Classical is iPhone only. Did Apple forget about the iPad? What should we conclude from this? Will it take years to come to the iPad, just like the Health app? Isn't that easy to make an iPad version of an app?

2024-02-21 ∞

🔗 Elon Musk nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Billionaire Elon Musk — whose businesses range from satellites to social media — was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by a Norwegian lawmaker who praised the X owner as a “stout proponent for free speech.”

You must be kidding me! While at it, why not nominate Putin for his fight against nazis in Ukraine. Beyond ridiculous.

2024-02-21 ∞

Yesterday I did a 20-min presentation on how to take advantage of ChatGPT and GenAI tools at work, for my colleagues. Many of them didn't learn anything because they already experimented with these tools. For others, they learned quite a bit and I saw their enchantment in their eyes. This reminds of 1993 when I gave a similar presentation about tools like Netscape, Newsgroups, Gopher, and Mail and how to use http requests. Today, we need to learn how to create effective "prompts".

2024-02-23 ∞

I'm still looking into new use cases for using Micro.blog's new blog limits¹. Porting a portion of my meta blog is one such use case, but porting this portion would be really difficult. I might go ahead with a dual publication: I keep the Craft version because it is richer and faster to publish but also publish on Micro.blog because of RSS support and better integration with my Micro.blog digital community.

2024-02-24 ∞

After much thinking, I decided not to create exclusive content for paying subscribers of numericcitizen.me. Reason #1: I don't publish often enough to warrant such a decision. Reason #2: I don't have the time to create such content and don't want to feel the pressure. Reason #3: I prefer asking for support for my whole creative journey. In a sense, someone subscribing encourages the pursuit of my journey by saying: can't wait to read what's coming! Are you one of those? 🙂

2024-02-24 ∞

Finalizing This Week's Creative Summary — Plus: An Idea

It’s Sunday, and you know the drill: it’s time to share my latest edition of the weekly creative summary. It’s mostly complete, so this week’s edition partially follows the “build in public” movement. I wonder if I should start sharing the document at the beginning of the process so that you can see the whole creation process as I’m working on the current edition. What do you think?

I’ve been doing these summaries since last September and enjoy putting them together. It’s issue number 22. Enjoy. The email version is coming out later today.

Built with care and love on 100% recycled electrons.

2024-02-25 ∞

Thought of the day: Micro.blog is probably the most fun and flexible thing on the open web these days that I can play with. It is approachable which in itself is a great quality. It is a creativity “unleasher”. When something is fun, I want more of it. I want to spread the word and share my excitement. 👊🏻

2024-02-25 ∞

A Metablog That You Can Follow via RSS

💡 Today, I want to share the newest addition to my digital publishing space: my metablog, hosted on Micro.blog. This isn't entirely new; another version is already in place, but it is hosted as a series of Craft-shared documents. What I'm sharing today is hosted on Micro.blog using the recently introduced increase in the number of blogs you can have with a single premium account¹. From this migration, my metablog will gain RSS feed support, enable POSSE, and be closer to my online community here on Micro.blog, but also on Mastodon and Bluesky.

One last thing: this is a work-in-progress, a build-in-public thing. I'm slowly transposing most of my content to this new home, one post at a time. You'll know it because of cross-posting and the RSS feed provided that you subscribe. 👈🏻 Some posts date back to 2020, but you might be surprised by discovering a few gems.

2024-02-25 ∞

The Craft team is introducing collaborative whiteboards to Craft. I tested the feature and made a video about it.

{{< youtube "vw91P5vV8ls" >}}

2024-02-27 ∞

On Apple Car Project Cancellation - It Did Make Any Sense Anyway

This whole Apple Car didn't make any sense to me. It's not Apple. A car is not a personal device. A personal device is a phone. A computer. Or a bike. One positive byproduct of this car journey is probably the birth of CarPlay 2.0, which was probably worked within the Apple Car project. But then, what else? AI? Maybe. I'm reading that the AI portion of the project will be folded into the other AI team(s) within Apple. It's good because Apple needs all it can get in AI to stay relevant in that field and imagine the future beyond Siri.

2024-02-27 ∞

Today is the kind of day where I feel that I'm in a constantly moving mode: from Craft to Micro.blog or Bear 2. Closing this subscription, starting a new one. And all this for what? Content preservation? Data silos fighting? It's exhausting.

2024-02-27 ∞

Yesterday, while writing and editing a report for one of our clients, I used ChatGPT for two different use cases. One use case was to ask for a summarization of what "firmware" is and how critical it is. The second use case is to define the pillars of a data management and governance policy in the enterprise. On that one, I asked for more details about managing unstructured data. The ChatGPT results were mind-blowing. I know a lot about this specific IT field, and I could validate the correctness of the answers. I saved a lot of time because of ChatGPT.

But what about my ethics?

Should I write a disclaimer in this report that says GenAI was used to put together some portions of this report? Is the client ready and mature enough to read this disclaimer? Will he understand that ChatGPT is in fact like an assistant to whom I asked to summarize what a data governance policy is? How do I cite my sources?

2024-02-28 ∞

Lots of meetings today at the office. Used my iPad Pro all the time for note-taking. It's such a wonderful and mighty device for that purpose. Even with iPadOS limitations. I'm excited for the next iteration. I can't wait to see what's coming next to this platform.

2024-02-29 ∞